Supreme Court Appears To Favor Arizona On Controversial Immigration Law

WASHINGTON -- A majority of the Supreme Court on Wednesday morning appeared sympathetic to Arizona's argument that the most controversial elements of its immigration law offer a legitimate helping hand to federal immigration policy, rather than act as unconstitutional agents of chaos.

The politically charged clash between Arizona and the United States was the final oral argument of the court's extraordinarily high-profile term and served as a rematch between D.C. superlawyer Paul Clement and U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who faced off in the health care cases over the course of three days in late March.

Clement, arguing on behalf of Arizona and its governor, Jan Brewer, told the justices that the state's law, commonly known as S.B. 1070, "borrowed the federal standard as its own" in combating Arizona's "disproportionate share of the costs of illegal immigration."

The court's three participating liberal members were Clement's most aggressive questioners, focusing largely on the prospect that U.S. citizens could be detained under the law for unconstitutionally unreasonable lengths of time. Justice Samuel Alito, a member of the court's conservative bloc, also seemed troubled by this consideration.

Still, the conservative justices saved much of their skepticism for Solicitor General Verrilli's assertions that federal law preempted four provisions of the Grand Canyon State's effort at "attrition through enforcement." Chief Justice John Roberts led an attack, at times joined by liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, arguing that S.B. 1070's "papers please" provision -- which requires law enforcement officers to demand immigration papers from anyone stopped, detained or arrested in the state -- does no more than assist the federal government's own policy of keeping tabs on undocumented immigrants.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, the high court's swing vote, also appeared more sympathetic to Arizona than to the federal government. "Can we say that a state must accept within its borders a person that is illegally present under federal law?" Kennedy asked in a tone that implied his answer would be "no."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/sb-1070-supreme-court-arizona-immigration-law_n_1451622.html